New York State Route 895

New York State Route 895 (NY 895; formerly Interstate 895 or I-895) is a short expressway in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Its south end is at a merging with the Bruckner Expressway (I-278) in the Hunts Point neighborhood, and its north end is at the Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95), with a short continuation connecting with local West Farms streets. NY 895 runs along the Arthur V. Sheridan Expressway for its entire route; the expressway is locally known as the Sheridan Expressway or simply The Sheridan.

The highway opened to traffic in 1963, and it received an Interstate route designation in 1970. The expressway was co-named for the Bronx Borough Commissioner of Public Works Arthur V. Sheridan, who died in a motor car crash in 1952. I-895 was supposed to connect back to I-95, its parent route, further north in Eastchester. However, due to community opposition, this extension was never built. As a result, I-895 saw relatively little use, since it ran parallel to the longer Bronx River Parkway.

In the 1990s, community groups began advocating for I-895 to be demoted to a boulevard. These groups cited the Sheridan Expressway's negative impact on the community. In the 2000s and 2010s, the city and state investigated ways to integrate the Sheridan with the neighboring community. I-895 was downgraded to a state route in September 2017, in preparation for its conversion into Sheridan Boulevard. The conversion of NY 895 into Sheridan Boulevard began in September 2018, and the boulevard is expected to be complete by late 2019.

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NY 895 begins at exit 49 on I-278, also known as the Bruckner Expressway, in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx. The 6-lane highway heads northward, paralleling the Bronx River and the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor railroad tracks. There is one grade-separated interchange, which is for Westchester Avenue, about 0.6 miles (1.0 km) north of the split from the Bruckner Expressway.[5][6]

The road then curves slightly to the northwest, and a frontage road begins to parallel the highway on the east side until it terminates at a cul-de-sac in East Tremont. North of Jennings Street, the bidirectional West Farms Road also parallels the highway on its west side. The Sheridan crosses under East 174th Street and officially ends at an interchange with the Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95) in East Tremont. The roadway continues beyond the Cross Bronx as a short connector to local West Farms streets.[5][6]

Construction began in 1958.[7]:10 The highway was built parallel to the Bronx River on the former site of Starlight Park, an amusement park that was condemned to provide the right-of-way for both the Sheridan and Cross Bronx Expressways. As part of the project, a city park, also called Starlight Park, was created in its place.[8][13][14] An additional park, Daniel Boone Playground, was also created on land condemned for the expressway.[15] Thousands of residents were displaced by the expressway's construction.[7]:10 A 1-acre (0.40 ha) plot at the southeast corner of the Bronx Zoo was also acquired for the highway's proposed expansion past the Cross Bronx Expressway,[16] even though the Sheridan Expressway was ultimately not built that far.[7]:10 The $9.5 million expressway was opened to traffic on February 6, 1963.[1][17]

Over the years, the expressway has received a number of Interstate designations. It was originally designated as I-695 in late 1958. In early 1959, the highway designation was changed to I-895. Later that year, however, I-278 was rerouted to use the Sheridan Expressway. This was the designation of the highway when it opened in 1963. On January 1, 1970, I-278 was realigned to follow the Bruckner Expressway east to the Bruckner Interchange while the Sheridan Expressway was redesignated as I-895.[2]

A 1964 highway map showing the completed portion of the expressway (green), and the unbuilt extension (red).

The Sheridan Expressway was originally planned to extend northeast to the New England Thruway (I-95) in Eastchester just north of Co-op City, creating a shortcut toward New England and a direct route to New England from the Triborough Bridge.[7]:10[18][19]:79 The extension would have been built along Boston Road (U.S. Route 1) through Bronx Park and Northeast Bronx.[7]:10[20] Shortly after the opening of the first segment of the expressway, it was projected that construction of the first extension to the Bronx River Parkway would begin 1965, and the final segment to the New England Thruway in 1967.[18] However, the project, like other Robert Moses highways, faced increasing community opposition.[21][7]:10[19]:80 It was cancelled by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1971, one year before its projected completion.[8]

The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) started studying ways to reduce congestion and improve safety at the Sheridan Expressway's southern interchange with the Bruckner Expressway.[7]:13 The NYSDOT proposed expanding the highway in the late 1990s.[21][7]:13 The plan faced opposition rooted in claims of environmental justice from community groups, most notably the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, which proposed an alternative that called for the expressway to be replaced with affordable housing, schools, and a park.[19]:87[24] At the time, the nearby, parallel Bronx River Parkway saw twice as many daily vehicles as did the Sheridan Expressway:[24] in 2001, I-895 carried 37,000 daily vehicles, while the Bronx River Parkway carried 60,000 to 100,000 daily vehicles.[25] Residents also opposed a proposal to connect the expressway with Hunts Point Market to the south, saying that the NYSDOT had not consulted them about plans for the connection.[26] Some community groups created an alliance called the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance (SBRWA), which began devising plans for removing the highway.[7]:13

In 2001, the NYSDOT again started looking at ways to improve I-895, especially at the Bruckner Expressway junction, a source of congestion due to a merge in the southbound/westbound directions. Local groups advocated for the Sheridan Expressway's removal because it isolated Hunts Point from the rest of the Bronx, and proposed that new ramps from the Bruckner Expressway be built for trucks going to Hunts Point Market. However, the NYSDOT stated that removing the highway would force expressway traffic to use local streets instead.[25] An environmental impact statement was started in 2003. In a final scoping document for the proposal in 2003, the NYSDOT conducted studies of the neighborhood and found that the best option was to make the intersection with Bruckner Expressway a full interchange, with the Sheridan Expressway able to access both directions of the expressway and vice versa. The Sheridan Expressway itself would be decommissioned, and several alternatives all proposed easier access to Hunts Point Market.[27]

In 2008, the NYSDOT announced that it was holding talks with community officials for an alternative community plan.[28] The plan gained momentum in July 2010.[23] However, the state opposed the plan to demolish the highway, citing a study showing that local traffic would be worsened. At this point, the highway saw 50,000 daily vehicles.[29] The dispute between the local community and the city and state governments led to a stalemate, what the Daily News called a "crossroads" and "a road to nowhere".[30] On June 11, 2012, the Daily News reported that the administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was also opposed to the removal.[31] In 2013, the city conducted a study of the Sheridan Expressway. The study recommended downgrading the expressway into an at-grade boulevard, connecting the three parks along the Sheridan Expressway waterfront, and creating or improving vehicular ramps between Sheridan Expressway, Bruckner Expressway, and the Hunts Point neighborhood.[7]:48 The decommissioning proposal consisted of two options: retaining the separate West Farms Road parallel to Sheridan Expressway, or combining Sheridan Expressway and West Farms Road. Both proposals involved demolishing the frontage road east of the expressway.[7]:29

In March 2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the expressway would be replaced with a boulevard.[32][33] The 2017 New York State budget included $97 million for decommissioning the Interstate designation and the Sheridan Expressway, as recommended by the New York City Council and New York City Department of Transportation. Another $600 million was later added to the state budget for decommissioning the highway,[33] bringing the total budget to nearly $700 million.[32] The decommissioning would comprise the first phase of a project that would cost a total of $1.8 billion.[33] On September 24, 2017, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials decommissioned Interstate 895, and the road was redesignated New York State Route 895 (NY 895). However, the signs for I-895 were not immediately replaced with NY 895 shields.[3]

Plans call for the expressway to be demolished and converted into a lower-speed boulevard called "Sheridan Boulevard" by 2019. The new boulevard would include traffic lights at Jennings, 172nd, and 173rd Streets, with crosswalks that connect the residential area on the current expressway's west side with Starlight Park on its east. The boulevard would run parallel to West Farms Road, in a manner similar to the first of the city's two proposals for downgrading the highway.[34] As of 2017[update], the park was only accessible via the East 174th Street bridge that crosses both the expressway and the Bronx River. The project is expected to improve pedestrian safety and access to both Starlight Park and the Bronx River shoreline.[33][32] Exit ramps to Edgewater Road would be built from southbound Sheridan Boulevard, as well as from both directions of Bruckner Expressway, providing direct access to Hunts Point Market; most of the project's cost would come from building these ramps.[33] At the time of the proposal, up to 13,000 trucks per day[32] simply detoured through local streets to get to the market, which elicited complaints from residents.[33]

The Federal Highway Administration (FHA)'s acting head wrote a letter to NYSDOT officials in June 2018, stating that the NYSDOT "provide[d] adequate justification" to downgrade the former I-895 into a boulevard.[35] The federal government approved the conversion of NY 895 into a boulevard on September 19, 2018. The NYSDOT immediately announced that work would begin on decommissioning the highway within a week, and that the project would be complete by late 2019.[35][36]